Even in Sydney, Jews still being made to run away and hide

Unlike Christians, or indeed Muslims, Jewish people are not permitted to drive to their places of worship on the Sabbath. They must walk, which explains why Jewish people tend to congregate around the shul.

Which brings us to the latest outrage: a few months back, the Jewish community in Bondi applied for permission to build a new synagogue on Wellington Street. Some problems were anticipated, but it’s fair to say that nobody expected Land and Environment commissioner Graham Brown to cite, among other things, the “potential risk” to the public, including from “a potential terrorist threat”.

Can you believe it? For at least 200 years Australia has ushered the traumatised and persecuted on to these shores, with the promise of peace.

But now, if you’re Jewish, this decision — responsibility for which has been passed back and forth between the local council and the commission — you’re a threat to everyone else, forcing you back into hiding.

How is this moral? …

The fact Jewish people have been the victims of mindless hatred even in Australia is obvious. There have been swastikas daubed on schools and Jews have been harassed on public transport. The Israeli consulate was bombed in 1982, as was the Hakoah Club, and nobody has ever been held responsible.

But nobody has ever blamed the Jewish community. That would be like blaming the Jews of the Polish ghetto for being rounded up and hit with sticks.

But when it comes to the threat from Islamist terror, suddenly it’s different?